Aftermath
by MidnightAmant
Summary: Draco isolates himself in his France Château after his Azkaban trial. Why? Because he thought he deserved worse than what he received. An introspective look at Draco Malfoy as he copes with being free, but still caught in the quagmires of his own mind as he tries to come to terms with his sentencing, the events of the war, and his childhood.
1. Prologue

**Aftermath**

Summary: Draco isolates himself in his France Château after his Azkaban trial. Why? Because he thought he deserved worse than what he received. An introspective look at Draco Malfoy as he copes with being free, but still caught in the quagmires of his own mind as he tries to come to terms with his sentencing, the events of the war, and his childhood.

 **Warnings:** This fic is going to be very dark. More specific warnings/triggers will be posted at the beginning of each chapter if/when needed.

 _ **Characters and events may be AU/OOC.**_

 **Prologue**

He moved from the cold, damp cell in Azkaban where he'd been awaiting trial for two weeks, to one surrounded by people in robes that were, thankfully, not Dementors. The cage had points that turned toward the prisoner, inhibiting their movements.

This is it, he thought. He was going to Azkaban.

Charity Burbage: dead.

Dumbledore: dead.

Thorfin Rowe: dead.

Katie Bell: cursed into near insanity.

Ronald Weasley: poisoned to near death.

He'd taken the Dark Mark, and all that came with it. His home had been the epicentre of the Dark- Voldemort's movement to eradicate all opposition and create a pure society. Of course he was guilty.

He'd done nothing to stop any of it.

"How do you plead, Mr. Malfoy?" The strong voice of the frail Wizengamot man bounced around the room and agonised Draco's head, which had gotten used to the quietude of Azkaban while he'd been held there to await trial. It brought him out of his futile musings.

"Guilty, Sir." He deserved whatever they gave him. He saw the bushy-haired muggleborn Granger step up to speak, but he couldn't bring himself to really listen to what she was saying. Whether she was speaking to save him or further condemn him, he knew not and he cared not. None of it mattered. The Wizengamot was going to do what it wanted, and it wanted the Malfoys incarcerated. The Malfoy name besmirched. They made sure his father was already incarcerated in that pit of Hell for the rest of his life. They couldn't touch his mother; she hadn't taken the Mark, and her house had been taken over by the Darkest Wizard of all time. She had clearly been the victimised party. So the Ministry was itching to hang him for everything his family had done during the War. His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed the bushy-haired woman was replaced with The Boy Who Lived. Draco closed his eyes against the onslaught of colours and the light that was grating against his eyes. He didn't care what Potter said. The Wizengamot didn't care, either; Draco knew that the authority would do what it wanted with him.

He'd accepted Azkaban.

He deserved Azkaban.

"Draco Malfoy, you have been cleared of all charges, so long as you adhere to the following conditions-"

Draco didn't hear the rest.

Cleared of all charges.

Cleared of all charges.

Cleared of all charges.

The words echoed in his ears, pain lanced through his head. The words tasted like acid in his mouth. He didn't hear the conditions as he looked the frail man in the eye for the first time since entering the courtroom.

Draco could, for once, decipher no meaning in the man's gaze. It has been a skill of Draco's, to be able to read people. No longer. He didn't understand. He let himself be freed from the cage before the Wizengamot, felt nothing as, under guard, he was led to one more cage.

The public waiting outside.

"Where do you wish to go, Mister Malfoy?" One of the Aurors murmured to him as they pushed through the oppressive, aggressively boisterous crowd to the apparition point. Draco said nothing until they were in front of the ministry personnel organising his travel.

"The Château in France." Draco rasped, finally realising he needed to speak if he wanted to leave.

"Would you like to stop at the Manor-"

"The Château is sufficient." Draco responded.

"We'll have to Side-Along you, since you had your apparition licence temporarily suspended. Once you're in France we will set you up to get it reinstated."

"Fine. Let's be gone." Draco flinched as the two Aurors gripped his biceps. Disliking the touch immensely. Disliking even more as the sickening disorientation of this method of travel cleaved through him. Within seconds, they appeared at the regulated apparition point in France. The two Aurors expedited the process to get his licence reinstated with little fuss.

"This is where we leave you, Mr. Malfoy." Said the Auror who hasn't spoken yet.

"Thank you for seeing to my safety." Without further acknowledgement, Draco apparated to the Château.

* * *

Draco was greeted with disrepair. He chuckled, the action barely given sound from his dry and unused throat. The run down outside of the Château suited his mood perfectly. Some of the windows were broken. The gardens lining both sides of the path to the house were overrun with weeds and chest high grasses. Draco opened the door, and Starry, the main House Elf of the Château, appeared in front of him with a _crack_ that made him itch for his wand.

"Mister Malfoy! We was expecting you later, but we is happy you is here! How should Starry be helping you now, Master?" Draco looked down at the House Elf from his childhood. He suddenly stormed up to his suite and grabbed a large amount of clothes. He didn't want the help. He didn't deserve it. He wanted solitude. By the time he arrived back downstairs, all of the Elves had gathered in the foyer to receive him. Before he even finished clearing the stairs, he was throwing clothing at them.

"As reigning Patriarch of the Malfoy name, I hereby free you from the service of the Malfoys." The cacophony of squeaks of surprise and anger were difficult to be heard over as he spoke, but Malfoy managed. When he finished, breaths were heaving themselves out of his chest, which was rising and falling at an alarming rate. Starry stepped forward hesitantly.

"Mister Malfoy? We is wanting to stay. You is given us clothes, you is freed us, but we is wanting to stay anyway." Draco, who'd been pacing off the energy still building up in him from his actions, spun to face her.

"Why? You're free, you can go."

"We is not wanting to go. We is working here for many, many years. We is liking it here. We is not wanting to leave." Starry said. Draco shook his head in disbelief.

"Fine, fine. Stay. Just stay out of my way."

"Would Mister Malfoy be wanting a meal?"

"I said, stay out of my way." Draco muttered as he passed the receiving line of Elves and made his way back upstairs. Once in his suite, he'd shut the door, locked it, and placed silencing charms on the walls and door. He sat with his back against the door, still feeling swallowed by the space; his short two weeks in Azkaban had certainly taken a toll. His eyes darted around, unable to settle; his heart pounded so loudly he felt it pulsing in his head. He looked down at his left arm, at the damning tattoo that marred the pale skin.

He'd never hated anything more than he'd hated today.

He'd gone free.

He hadn't deserved freedom.

 **A/N: Hello all! So I'm posting the first chapter of this now because it's been written, ha. I don't know when I'm actually going to be consistently updating it at the moment though. Once I know, you'll know! Just another experiment of mine.**


	2. Day One

**Day One**

The space suffocated him. It wasn't the fact that it was too small. It was the fact that as he sat huddled in a window nook, the gargantuan library stretched behind him, swallowing up half of the East Wing on the second floor and it was overwhelming him. The sheer space. He'd refused any kind of food, much to the consternation of the House Elves. He didn't care.

He was a free man. He could do what he wanted.

He sure didn't feel that way, though. He felt as though any moment he would wake up in a cold, dank cell in Azkaban. He'd been unhappy beyond words to realise that wasn't the case. He'd had to dim the lights. Shut all the curtains except for the one he was sitting in front of. Cast silencing charms everywhere, to muffle the noises he could hear.

If he'd had any inkling ahead of time how much only two weeks in Azkaban was going to affect him, he would've fought for house arrest.

Or maybe not. He didn't deserve the luxury that house arrest would've afforded him. It would've been likely for the Wizengamot to deny him house arrest anyway, for just that reason.

A bird flew across the limited view the window offered him of the French countryside, and he jumped, spilling his tea – the only thing in which he'd chosen to indulge – over his hands and trousers. He used his wand absently to clean up. The wand felt foreign in his hands after not having access to it whilst in Azkaban awaiting trial. It was a new wand; he'd been surprised when Olivander had let him into his shop just after the war had ended, and he had reopened. Olivander had told him that he had owed Draco his life, as Draco had prevented Voldemort from being summoned to the Manor, therefore saving their lives, which would have surely been no more had Voldemort been summoned. The least he could do was give Draco a wand.

His eyes roamed the library. He remembered that as a small child, no older than six or seven, he used to run through the aisles, laughing loudly as his mother gained on him and foiled his attempts to delay his lessons. Back then, the sounds of another person, especially mingled with his mother's signature perfume, would have been comforting. But now, the sensation of being chased, the sound of footsteps around corners, maniacal laughing, it was all ominous. It meant you were being chased. Hunted. He looked forlornly at the library as the once fond and innocent memory taunted him. Life will never be that way again.

The imposing library, shrouded in dust, darkness, and silence, seemed to attest to that.

 **A/N: Hello there! I apologise for the wait - I've been working pretty constantly over the last week so I haven't had any time to write. So with this fanfic, I'm just going to quickly outline how its going to work. Draco is going to stay in the France Chateau for a year. I am planning on posting a chapter for every day that he stays there, and they will be short ones like this. I don't know if I will write a chapter for absolutely every day he spends in the chateau, just because I have no idea if I will have enough material for 365 chapters. I currently have the first 15 chapters planned out, but not written.**

 **Addtionally, I am also still working in A Difficult Endeavour. Please take a look at it if you haven't yet!**

 **Last thing - I have been participating in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with some of my friends, and I have written an origin story for my character in DnD. If you'd like to read it, you can find it here:**

 **www dot fictionpress dot com(slash)s(slash)3293685(slash)1(slash)The(dash)Origins(dash)of(dash)Manon(dash)Ageisbane**


	3. Day Two

**Day Two**

Draco sat at the kitchen island, looking – no, glaring – at the plenteous amount of food in front of him. He couldn't reconcile with the idea of even putting one tiny morsel in his mouth, however tempting the House Elves thought it might have been. It only succeeded in making him feel ill.

He stuck with tea, warming his nutrition-deprived body.

"Store the food, for now. I can't stand to look at it." Draco mumbled, looking out the kitchen window at the bright sunny day. When he looked back at the table a moment later, the food had all vanished.

"You must needs be eating, Mister Malfoy. Otherwise we will be needing to taking you to Mungo's." Starry said at his elbow. Draco shook his head.

"St. Mungo's won't be necessary. I'm not even sure they'll treat a Death Eater." Draco squinted in the sunlight the cut across the room in the early morning. Draco saw his reflection in the window: sallow skin, purple undercutting his eyes. Both were signs of lack of nutrition and sleep, of which he was getting next to nothing of neither. No wonder Starry had felt the need to say something.

"You is not a Death Eater, Mister Malfoy. We is seeing the pictures in the papers. You is… what is the words… aha, 'cleared of all charges' so see, you is not being a Death Eater."

"That's logic as far as it goes, I suppose." Draco muttered, swirling the liquid contents in his mug."

"You is doing bad things, Mister Malfoy, but you is not really meaning them. You is only doing them to protect Master Malfoy and Mistress Malfoy. You is being a good son." Starry continued, trying to make Draco feel better. But the more she spoke, the more withdrawn his expression became until it had the likeness of stone.

"I do not wish to speak about it any longer." Draco's voice, stronger now for the moment, startled the elf, who bowed.

"Yes, Mister Malfoy. Is Mister Malfoy be needing anything else?" Starry disappeared with that resounding _crack_ that came with any House Elf apparating. Draco jumped. He cast his eyes from the window to track around the room, illuminated by the morning sun. They moved from the granite countertops, to the sleek, black cabinetry that made no sounds when they were opened and closed. From the newly picked flowers that rested on the kitchen windowsill to the cast iron pots, skillets, and pans that hung above him over the kitchen island. It had been nothing for the Elves to clear the dust and grime that had built up over the last few years and make it look new again. It never seemed to take a long time to erase that which was on the surface. To make it perfect.

He remembered the smell of baking that seemed to permeate the kitchen when he was a child. Sometimes the Elves did the baking, but there were times when mother took over the kitchen and did it herself. She even did some of it by hand, because that was the way her mother had done it, and her mother before that. Mother had said she got more satisfaction doing it that way, though she made sure that father was never around when she did. She knew he wouldn't approve, but Draco always thought he knew and just let her do it because it brought her joy. He remembered the smile on her face. It made her features softer, kinder. Not that she wasn't kind, she was just very serious and reserved for much of his later years; during and after the war, she had looked… old. She'd had more lines in the softness of her face. Her eyes had held sadness and regret that hadn't been there before. The war had weathered her. He hadn't spoken to her or seen her since he'd been sentenced and had escaped to France.

He missed her smile.

 **A/N: A new chapter folks! Enjoy!**

 **Replies to Reviews:**

 **lauralydney:** Thanks so much for the review! I can assure you that it will definitely not be yaoi, so don't worry. Ooops, about the grammar. I will work on that - I never learned it that way, strangely enough. Thanks for the follow!

 **manitou2422:** I love your reviews! They always bring a smile to my face. Keep it up please!

 **pianomouse:** Thank you so much! Really appreciate it - hope I didn't disappoint! :D


	4. Day Three

**Day Three**

Draco had wandered upstairs today. He stood in front of the potions lab. It was covered in dust, but the high quality of the beakers, the Bunsen burner, and the other potions paraphernalia was still very much visible. Draco trailed a hand along the lacquered desk, sweeping up brushes of dust as he went. Disturbing the stale air; the windows hadn't been opened in a while. Draco did that now, momentarily welcoming the cool air that caressed his face. Sunlight cleaved into the room Soon enough, the space between his shoulder blades started twitching and he knew to close the window and shut the room into semi-darkness once more.

The potions ingredients that were stored on shelves had decayed; they hadn't been used in years. The insides of all the phials were all black and rotten and withered, much like his current mental and physical state.

The pangs from his stomach were something he could ignore, now.

Needing to sit, he moved over to the desk and sat in the leather chair, not minding the dust that clung to his clothes. He saw his own notes looking back at him in a haphazard pile on top of the lacquered wood. They were for a potion he'd wanted to make in fifth year to impress Snape. Gods that felt like so long ago.

Things were much simpler then. He winced when he looked at the red ink spilled across the page over his notes. Every correction his father had made in his notes had been a physical wound to Draco. He felt as though his own blood had been spilled with how harsh each criticism had been.

There had been times when the hate he'd felt for his father had surprised him. That had been one of those times.

Not long after that, actually, the hate had been nearly constant, bubbling up like a percolating potion.

 _Kill Dumbledore._

 _Fix the cabinet._

 _Kill Dumbledore._

 _Fix the cabinet._

 _Kill Dumbledore._

 _Fix the cabinet._

The missions he'd been set swirled around in his mind, a lethal lance that set free the anger and hate he'd kept chained for propriety's sake.

He got to his feet and stumbled over to the shelves. He grabbed jars and phials at random, tossing them behind him. When the satisfying sounds of glass hitting the floor did nothing for his mood, he moved to the side, grabbed the corner of the shelving, and rocked it until it overbalanced and hit the floor with an almighty crash that served to hide Draco's hoarse scream. Lacking any further strength to cause destruction, he fell to his knees; new pains accompanied the ones curling in his stomach as his knees landed on glass. He yelled again, pounding his fists weakly into the floor as hot tears rolled down his cheeks. His body shuddered and gave out on him just as Starry burst into the room.

He could see the alarm on Starry's face before he blacked out.

 **A/N: I thought I wasn't going to be updating this until I had made more headway with my other three fanfictions, buuuuutttt... this came into my head so I wrote it. Hope you enjoyed!**

 **Replies to Reviews:**

 **Manitou2422:** Yeah, it really would be a struggle for him. I think he would feel guilt and anger and some helplessness, and it's all swirling around in his head.

 **Pianomouse:** Thank you so much!


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